Month: May 2021

Weevil Win and a Mystery

Weevils are the class clowns of the beetle order. They have a goofy cuteness, with their antennae improbably sprouting out of their elongated snouts. A rose weevil was one of the insects on the wish list that I drew this winter, and I found not just one, but many on, yes, wild roses last week. A win!

Here’s a bit of an illustrated mystery. I was on a trail a few days ago and heard clicking from the trees. Two (what I was sure were) insects were calling to each other from either side of the path. I stood under one of the trees, listening and trying to focus on where the sound was coming from and finally saw a movement. Wings uplifted, I thought. I took a bunch of photos but the branch was pretty high up and there were no good angles. I thought the leaf, facing to the left, was the insect’s head before I enlarged this image. It’s a pretty convincing leaf, don’t you think?

On the walk back to the trailhead, I wondered what insect it could possibly be. All the things I could think of that make clicking calling sounds (tree crickets, katydids) are tiny this time of year, like this katydid I’d seen a day or two before. They aren’t mature enough yet to mate, so they don’t yet make those sounds.

At home, I Googled insects that “talk” to each other this time of year and cicadas popped up.

Duh.

After listening to a few of the calls on the insect singers website, I recognized the wing “flicking”
at the end of the Okanagana rubrovenosa rubrovenosa recording. It sounded like what I’d heard. Furthermore, I realized I’d also heard the constant low drone in the background. Throughout my walk, I’d noticed a sound like a far-off swarm of bees, looking for a new nesting spot. That, too, was the cicadas!

This is a terrible picture, but the “L” between the branches is a leg, and the body of the cicada is low to the tree on the left. Now I have a new goal: Find a cicada in a more photogenic location. Unlike the eastern U.S., we don’t have extra large broods this year and our cicadas tend to stay up in the trees.

Stay curious!

Beetle Parade

It continues to astound me that I can find insect species that are new to me nearly every time I look, and it’s been three or more years that I’ve been looking, often every day. I was excited to find three gorgeous beetles this week.

The first photo is definitively a leaf beetle, but after that I may be stalled… because I don’t know my plants. Beetle species are wildly abundant and often there’s a type of beetle associated with dozens of host plants. That’s the case with these Galerucini tribe leaf eaters. I know exactly where the plant is, though, so maybe I can find a floral expert sometime to help me identify the plant and, therefore, the insect.

This attractive long-horn beetle was right across the path from the leaf beetle. It’s a Pidonia scripta and it’s on Thimbleberry… I know this because iNaturalist recognizes the flower. There were at least a half dozen of these beetles, one per flower, on a small stretch of path. They tended to crawl under the flower when I got near, but I had several chances to be stealthy.

I was excited to spot this May beetle (aka June bug and a lot of other nicknames). These branched-antennaed beetles usually fly at night, so I was even more happy to find another one two days later. In fact, I saw all three of the beetles in today’s post on both visits, which feels crazy rare to me. The first two were on their host plants, but I’m not sure what this May beetle was doing. I did learn it’s in the Dichelonyx genus and they fly during the day. It’s the subject of my Mt. Pisgah column this week, so you can read more there.

Cheers!

Look-Alikes

Click beetles have a built-in spine and groove system that helps them escape predators by flipping themselves in the air while making a loud clicking noise (some day I’ll turn one over and get a good picture, but the BugLady has one here).

Elateridae family beetles are fairly easy to identify after you’ve seen a few, because that jointed section makes their thorax end in an “m” shape, with often pointy “shoulders.” Before this year, I’ve only seen brown and black click beetles of various sizes. In the past two months, though, I’ve seen two with nearly opposite patterns of orange-red and black.

The first photo is a beetle in the Ampedus genus and the second is in the Megapenthes genus. Many questions come to mind. I understand insects evolved to thrive in conjunction with specific plants and habitats, so it makes sense there are thousands of very similar types. But why would having red in one location or another on your body make you more successful? Does each beetle mimic another bug in its niche? What do they think when they see each other?

This is one of the smaller Western Ash Borers (WABs) that I introduced a couple of weeks ago. I include it here because I found this individual yesterday:

When I saw this little beetle, I couldn’t remember the precise pattern of the WAB, but I was still pretty sure it wasn’t the same species. This beetle isn’t as furry, for one thing, but its markings are also different. The folks at BugGuide are looking at the Clytus genus, but I don’t have an identification yet.

Here’s a lesson from these encounters: It’s always worth it to stop and look closer at an insect even if you’re nearly sure it’s one you’ve seen dozens of times before. Chances are, a few of those inspections will yield something that’s new to you.

Stay curious!

To Name Is To Know

It can often be difficult to identify insects to the genus level, much less the species. So, when you can pinpoint something beyond that limit, it feels rewarding. The damselfly above is a Pacific forktail. Specifically, I learned from this Monterey Odonata website, it is a young, female Pacific forktail. The males have blue thoraxes, and the females come in a couple of colorways and have lighter thoraxes and orange behind their eyes when they are young. I’m also curious what this young ‘un is snacking on.

This flower beetle looks bluish at a glance. Beetles in the Malachius genus are being recategorized by the entomologists who are in charge of such things, so the family, genus and species may be different by the time you’re reading this.

In my mind, the beetle never changes who it is, and it’s annoying to me when taxonomy gets in the way of talking about the interesting characteristics of an insect. It shouldn’t take deep dives into ever-changing minutia to learn about an insect’s life cycle or eating habits. Also, guidebooks usually sort species by scientific name. So when those names change, the book becomes less useful.

People love to name things though. I think it helps us feel like we have control. Naming something means it’s in our grasp, and we like to think we “know” it if we can name it. What if there was a different way to know things? More pictorial, less nit-picky. Especially with insects. Common names come closer, in my mind, because they’re descriptive and they won’t change with new DNA evidence. As I said, the insect remains the same.

Here’s a really pretty red and bronze beetle I’ve been seeing all over lately. I believe it’s in the Pedilus genus. These “fire colored” beetles have also been re-categorized over time. But no matter in what file folder they’re currently placed, some of them have the fantastic habit of chewing blister beetles’ elytra so they can ingest their toxic cantharidin, and pass on the benefits of the poison to their progeny. No kidding! The Bug Lady has a nice write up here.

That’s all for the week. Stay curious!

	Scorpionfly! And a f… on A New York minute
	TickleHead on Hello yellow!
	murphyjb6af2f20ba on Hello yellow!
	Clicks and likes \| T… on New Cards Available
	TickleHead on Red, Green and Blue

Ticklehead

micro adventures with a macro lens